The majority of the Port City's business community has high hopes for the coming year.

The Saint John Board of Trade Membership survey shows business confidence in the city is on the rise with 78-percent of respondents saying they expect their company to do much better or somewhat better in the coming year. 84-percent say they think the business community in the city is very supportive or at least somewhat supportive of their business.

Meantime the latest results from the Monthly Labour Force Survey released by Stats Canada showing a drop of 1.4-percent in employment in Saint John from February to March of this year. However, that's up 3-percent from March of last year.

The large numbers of people who make their way to the Regional Hospital and U-N-B Saint John each weekday were seen as a potential pool of riders for the Comex suburban bus service.

It's estimated 16 hundred people from the Kennebecasis Valley go to the hospital and university to work or attend classes each weekday but It hasn't turned out that way. The problem, according to Saint John Transit General Manager Frank McCarey is that the starting times are all different.

McCarey does observe the hospital and university appear to be busier these past few years than the uptown, at least judging by bus ridership.

Various organic black peppercorns being pulled off grocery store shelves because they could be contaminated with salmonella.

Eleven products including three from Frontier, four from 365 Everyday Value and four from Simply Organic being recalled. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says if you have the product in your home you should throw it out or return it to the store where you bought it.

Salmonella can lead to fever, headache, vomiting, nausea, abdominal cramps and diarrhea in healthy people. There have been no reports of anyone getting sick from eating any of these peppercorns.

Saint John is described as being right at the bottom when it comes to literacy rates and that, according to Yves Bourgeois of the Urban Studies Institute at U-N-B Saint John, doesn't bode well for turning around the economy in the future.

Research done at U-N-B has shown children who are having problems with literacy by Grade 2 may never recover. Literacy will be highlighted Tuesday morning at the Delta where the chief economist with the T-D Bank Craig Alexander will be speaking.

We all know that New Brunswick has an employment problem--but does it also have a problem with its work ethic?

That was the question posed to Premier David Alward, who responded it's not for him to say whether there's a work ethic problem. All he knows is that he meets New Brunswickers every day, and they want jobs.That being said, the province has seen unfilled jobs in a number of sectors including Tourism and Hospitality, which can get short shrift as people leave for better paying jobs out West.

But according to the Premier, we're seeing that trend of unfilled positions and empty classrooms turning around.